"Each generation, coming out of obscurity, must define its mission and fulfill or betray it." Frantz Fanon - The Wretched of the Earth James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership. {r}evolution

Our mission is to nurture the transformational leadership capacities of individuals and organizations committed to creating productive, sustainable, ecologically responsible, and just communities. Through local, national and international networks of activists, artists and intellectuals we foster new ways of living, being and thinking to face the challenges of the 21st century.

THINKING FOR OURSELVES: Memories in Small Towns

THINKING FOR OURSELVESMemories in Small Towns
By Shea HowellMichigan Citizen, May 26, 2009

This Memorial Day I was in a small town in Maine. It has a year round population of a little over 2000. Few tourists or summer people have come to town yet.

I decided to go to the local holiday parade. It was exactly what you would expect. The police squad car led off, followed by four WWII veterans who formed the color guard. There was an assortment of fire trucks, old cars from the 1930s, a few kids on decorated bicycles, and both the high school and elementary school marching bands. Rounding out the parade was the local volunteer ambulance service.

Some marchers carried balloons, handing them out to almost every child with an outstretched arm.

In the middle was something I didn’t expect. About twenty men and women dressed in black, some wearing t-shirts that said Veterans Against War, carrying banners,. Each banner stretched nearly the width of the street and had about 300 identical flags on each side. Under each flag was the name of a man or woman who had lost their lives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were about 15 banners in all, introduced by a large sign that tallied the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today that number is nearly 5000 in Iraq and more than 600 in Afghanistan.

These men and women were asking us to remember that Memorial Day shouldn’t just be about past wars. It should remind us every day in the year that we are still involved in brutal wars, taking the lives not only of our own people, but bringing destruction and death to people in Iraq and Afghanistan where at least 753,000 people have died since these wars began. The numbers of both military and civilian deaths in Pakistan are unclear. But one thing we know. Both will grow.

Most of these deaths have not occurred under the leadership of President Obama. Still, they have had an impact on him. He has already spoken of the difficulty he faces in sending letters to the loved ones of fallen soldiers. Even before assuming the office of the President, Mr. Obama gathered information about soldiers killed. Since entering the White House, he has been sending personal notes to their families. Early in the year he told NBC News that he considers sending these letters an important duty and added “You realize every decision you make counts.”

This Memorial Day President Obama acknowledged his own lack of military service, saying, “My grandfather served in Patton’s army in World War II; I cannot know what it is like to walk into battle.” He went on, “I’m the father of two young girls, but I can’t imagine what it is like to lose a child. These are things I cannot know. But I do know this: I am humbled to be the commander-in-chief of the finest fighting force in the history of the world.”

These comments have come a long way from the campaign trail when during debates with then Senator Clinton, both candidates seemed to try to prove who was potentially the tougher commander-in-chief.

But President Obama has also come a long way from the promise of peace.

He has yet to ask us to consider how we have come to this moment. Why are we continuing to kill and be killed in order to protect a national way of living that is neither satisfying or sustaining?

Until, in towns all across America, we ask hard questions of ourselves and our leaders, we will continue to carry banners bearing names of our dead, generation after generation.

Recent Videos

Boggs Center

Events Calendar

Boggs Center Store

We Are Not Ghost - stories of community businesses, place based education school, spoken word artist. Tales of Detroiters remaking our city with vision and spirit for Next American Revolution.

{R}Evolution In 21st Century The new pamphlet consists of: Changing Concepts of Revolution “Rediscovering the American Past”. “Naming the Enemy” and “Towards a New Self-Governing America 2012

The Next American Revolution Sustainable Activism For the 21st centuryThe Next American Revolution by Grace Lee Boggs with Scott Kurashige Now available Hard Cover – Paper Book -Order your signed copy now.

The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker’s Notebook (2009 edition)

ON Being Krista Tippet

ON Being Krista Tippet
January 19, 2012
We travel to Detroit to meet the civil rights legend Grace Lee Boggs. We find the 96-year-old philosopher surrounded by creative, joyful people and projects that defy more familiar images of decline. It's a kind of parallel urban universe with much to teach all of us about meeting the changes of our time.
Listen now

Boggs Center 3061 Field St. Detroit, MI 48214

James and Grace Lee boggs Center To Nurture community Leadership
hpp//www.boggscenter.org / {r}evolution - the two side non-violent revolution in values.
The Boggs Center was founded in 1995 by friends and associates of James Boggs (1919 -1993) and Grace Lee Boggs (1915 - ) to honor and continue their legacy as movement activists and theoreticians.
Our aim is to help grassroots activists develop themselves into visionary leaders and critical thinkers who can devise proactive strategies for rebuilding and respiriting our cities and rural communities from the ground up, demonstrate the power of ideas in changing ourselves, our reality, and demystify leadership.